Posted: Thursday November 30, 2017

Anjunadeep feature: An Interview with Eric Luttrell

While Eric Luttrell has made some genre-bending electronica as half of the duo The M Machine, he says his solo work, which he started releasing in the fall of 2016 on Anjunadeep, tends to be a little more focused on the dancefloor.

“Getting people to smile and dance is definitely priority number one with Luttrell tunes,” he says. To keep people on the dancefloor, Luttrell says he always tries to blend some melodic house, deep house, progressive and techno into his sets while sometimes throwing in some breaks too. “Dropping into some dark, driving techno after 30 minutes of melodic deep house usually has quite an effect in a packed house,” he adds.

San Francisco-based Luttrell says he first started getting into techno and house while he was studying abroad in Berlin in 2007. “All the sudden I was exposed to all sorts of new sounds and musical ideas,” he says. “And when I realized I could make that kind of music on my computer, I was hooked!”

When creating tracks on his computer, Luttrell uses Native Instruments’ Maschine for its huge sound library and high-quality samples and he says it’s a really easy way to come up with new ideas and sometimes stumble upon really cool drum ideas. He says a lot of his tunes started by just messing around on the Maschine.

Luttrell, who get some of his inspiration from video game music (particularly Katamari), is working on a lot of new material and he’s been testing out a few cuts on his current tour and he says they’re going over well.

While Luttrell knows his way around techno and house he says it’s important to keep his music diverse because he’d get bored writing the same exact kind of song over and over again. “And I think having that variety really helps my sets take the crowd to a lot of different places,” Luttrell adds.

Since joining the Anjunadeep team a year ago, Luttrell has played major venues around the world. “Working with Anjunadeep has been great,” he says. “They’ve put a ton of effort into supporting the music and have invited me to play some of their biggest events, which has really helped give me some great exposure over the past year. I feel super lucky to be working with such a great team.”